What is the best way to respond when intrusive thoughts come in?

Leave the thoughts be and go about your daily routine. They don’t matter so treat them like they don’t matter.

I wanted to start this off by saying my experience is not everyone's, and by not experience this how I do does not mean you don't have POCD. In my experience with OCD and specifically POCD, it feels like I'm playing a game of chess with myself. Like literally, I'm on both sides of the chess board, moving both sets of pieces. The only thing is, my POCD is controlling one set, and the part of me that is typing this is playing the other. The thing is though, the side that wants to win the hardest is the POCD. And it is more then happy to not play the game fairly. It tells me to trust it and move my pieces into traps that I KNOW are bad moves. But because I trust it I play along and get stabbed in the back everytime. The OCD tells me, "hey, move your rook there, it's a good move." And I do, then it takes me with a pawn. Not only making the game harder to win but also degrading me in the process, making me more desperate. That's what this does. It makes us engage in an intrusive thought, pushes us to walk into a trap by reassuring ourselves ( like moving the rook ), and the crushes us with more doubts, spiraling us deeper into this game of chess. Where we aren't playing, we are just hanging on. Sure, you may win a game once in a while, with logic and reassurance. But you will lose the majority. And the more you sit down to play that game of chess where the odds are stacked up against you, the more you will lose. I challenge you to not even sit down. To see the game, acknowledge it and let it go. Be comfortable in the uncertainty that you could have won or lost. Let your POCD get bored and move on too. Walk right past it and let the thought be, don't give it meaning, don't play the game. THAT, is how you win the game. By not even playing. I hope this helped some of you like it helped me.